


Forged in Fire, Brutal and Perpetual

by gwennolmarie



Category: Red Dead Redemption (Video Games)
Genre: Falling In Love, Fluff, M/M, Massage, Non-Sexual Intimacy, hhhhh
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-30
Updated: 2019-01-30
Packaged: 2019-10-19 08:43:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,268
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17598020
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gwennolmarie/pseuds/gwennolmarie
Summary: “Too much?” Arthur jokes, treading carefully.“Never,” Charles says in return.The confidence in one word.Just one word has Arthur’s head a little fuzzy, high on the idea.The slowly-being-realized idea that Charles and he could be something more.





	Forged in Fire, Brutal and Perpetual

Charles is often seen as stoic.

To most.

Arthur knows better.

Has seen his friend, face to the sun, eyes pinched tight and holding his belly as he laughs.

Has seen his friend brows drawn and jaw clenched, after yelling in righteous anger.

Sees Charles, right now, sitting in front of him, open and yielding.

\--

Taima had spooked just enough to unseat Charles from the saddle.

The younger man had slid off her back, landing on his shoulder.

Arthur had jokingly offered to massage it but Charles had looked considering.

Shrugged with his good shoulder and murmured “Okay.”

Arthur had stuttered in reply, eyes-wide.

Charles had lifted a brow, ready to call Arthur’s bluff.

The older man had huffed, cursed and said that he would, when they made camp.

\--

They’d made camp, Arthur letting Charles take it easy while he worked.

Now they sit tucked into the open-flap tent.

Arthur’s legs crossed and Charles sitting just in front of his shins, hips framed by the toes of Arthur’s boots.

Arthur’s fingers pressing into the meat of Charles’ shoulder.

Push and pull.

Push and pull.

Thumb digging in and circling out.

Charles lets out a quiet grunt.

“Too much?” Arthur asks, quiet and hesitant to disrupt the air of oddly-placed peace that had settled on them.

Far away from Dutch’s nonsense.

Far away from the O’Driscoll bastards they’d dispatched on their mission.

In the middle of the woods, with a lazy, layered river trickling to the side.

Crickets singing, letting the air buzz with life even where it seemed empty.

“No, you’re fine,” Charles murmurs.

Arthur hesitates, then slides his hand over a little.

Repeats the movement.

Charles tenses and relaxes under his touch.

The soft shifting of cotton and beads as the younger man tilts his head to the side.

The low hum, vibrating Charles’ chest.

Arthur’s own chest feels unsteady.

Heartbeat a one-two flicker in the space of each regular pulse.

Arthur's throat clicks when he swallows and he ducks his head when Charles turns to look back at him.

“Too much?” Charles echoes and Arthur freezes.

Hands hovering on the younger man’s shoulder.

He looks up and meets soft, curious, dark eyes.

“Nah,” Arthur breathes out quietly.

Charles studies him for a few seconds then leans forward and reaches behind him with his good arm to grab the collar of his shirt and shucks it over his head.

He sits up and flexes his shoulders back, rolling his neck.

Arthur’s hands hang in the air, uncertain.

Facing the expanse of skin pulled taught over muscles that stand as visible proof of Charles’ strength…

The contrast of scars here and there, pinker and paler than the rest of the flesh before him.

Arthur’s hands settle against Charles.

Warmth under his fingertips, and some of the softest skin he’s ever felt.

He feels hyperaware of every tiny hair that brushes his palms.

Arthur’s never felt more distracted, by skin, by another human baring themselves to him.

Arthur ghosts his fingers over the puckered scar tissue, feeling the gathered edges of once-deep gashes.

Stitched whole to heal the man in front of him.

He reaches up and pushes a hand flat against Charles’ spine, smooths it up to the younger man’s nape and shifts all of Charles’ hair forward over his shoulder.

Feels Charles shudder under his touch when he drags his fingertips down the long columns of muscle.

“Too much?” Arthur jokes, treading carefully.

“Never,” Charles says in return.

The confidence in one word.

Just one word has Arthur’s head a little fuzzy, high on the idea.

The slowly-being-realized idea that Charles and he could be something _more_.

“Okay,” Arthur whispers.

He moves back to the battered shoulder.

Carefully wraps one hand over the cap of muscle where arm meets collar.

Uses his other hand to manipulate the flesh over the shoulder blade.

The heel of his hand drags in a diagonal to meet his other.

Charles lets free another soft sound.

So loud when the background is only nature’s white-noise.

Arthur draws his upper lip in, pressing his mouth closed in a way that distantly hurts.

He pulls back to uncross his legs.

Stretches them out to bracket the outsides of Charles’ own legs.

There’s a moment of fear.

Something that has him hesitating.

Callous and cold, hardened by his upbringing until he no longer flinches from the power of a bullet firing from his gun and splitting a man’s face open.

The backsplash of blood on his forearms that isn’t acknowledged until he washes it away.

Trying not to think of it as anything more than mud.

There’s no hesitation in his arms wrapping around some poor soul’s neck and taking everything from them.

There’s no hesitation in his hands, fists, hitting cheekbones and feeling the fracture and shatter of ivory.

There is hesitation, now, in wanting to touch.

Thinking he’s allowed but not _knowing_.

Doubting, though nothing is giving him any reason to think he wouldn’t be permitted.

Charles lifts himself up and scoots back, forcing Arthur to spread his legs further lest they be crushed under the younger man.

Arthur feels the rattle, in his lungs, a shaky, hesitant exhale.

He lays the flats of his palms against Charles’ shoulder blades.

Digs his fingertips in around the edges of the bone, where the muscles condense, collect and connect to form structures that allow movement.

That allow mass and capacity.

Charles leans into the touch and it’s all the permission Arthur needs.

He touches aimlessly, at first.

Exploring because he _can_.

With no rush, no constant weight on his shoulders to support a ‘family’ that hardly seems to acknowledge his efforts.

No ties to violence and no need for it.

He can be gentle, here.

He can move his hands reverently.

Relish in being able to touch freely, without intent to kill or claim.

Charles’s hand settles on Arthur’s thigh, just above his knee.

Squeezes softly.

Arthur leans forward and lowers his forehead to Charles’ back.

Sits and breathes, feeling Charles’ body moving with the younger man’s own breath.

Rise and fall, big and smaller, but not quite small.

It’s relief, Arthur realizes.

The first time he’s touched, and been touched, that doesn’t carry the obligation of more.

It’s _easy_.

It’s so damn easy in a world that’s never been nothing but _hard_ for them.

Charles’ thumb rubs lazily over the little bit of flesh on his inner thigh, to the side of one of the joints that carry him daily.

When they both grow tired and the sky grows too dark, the fire too dim, they crawl into the tent.

Laying side by side, apart, at first, and then together, just by the settling of Charles’ hand on Arthur’s forearm.

A little anchor between them that carries the easiness through the night.

Unwavering.

\--

They wake the next morning, facing each other, almost at the same time.

Both seeing the other man’s face clear of confusion and cloud that settle in sleep.

Charles smiles at the older man and Arthur doesn’t try to fight the smile that tugs his lips in reply.

\--

All the moments shared between them, over the next few days, are unconcealed but confidential, in their own way.

More meaningful, with the lingering of a hand on an upper arm or upper back.

More sacred, when they’re in battle and Arthur stops Charles with a hand fisted in the back of the younger man’s shirt.

Bullets flying overhead while they’re ducked behind cover.

The look they share, the pleading from Arthur.

_‘Don’t go and be felled now, we’ve only just been forged.’_

**Author's Note:**

> this was supposed to smut but heyo fuck it tumblr @gwennolmarie


End file.
